The below is something I posted in another thread but I feel it was a distraction so I decided to post here.
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According to the
website, this product can be a game changer, particularly for parallel tracking. Unfortunately, the price is 600,000 yen ($4,600 USD). Yikes! I think those 6 figure uber turntables should just give out such a device as a freebie!
Besides the Nakamichi turntables, I'm surprised no one else thought of accessories like this. I do know a Frank Schroeder designed turntable had deliberate smaller diameter spindle at the bottom portion to allow room to shift the record for concentricity. Other than that, the so called "high end" world has not spent much time on a device like this except making bigger and heavier and brighter platters. Shouldn't turntable spindles be machined independently from the bearing shaft so they can be swapped out with different diameters and length?
From what I read, it provides a hole enlarging tool or a reamer that allows the user to shift the record to center it based on the detection of run out grove. You physically move the disc to get concentricity. Once you dialed in, the device would tell you it's locked in dead center. Think of it as a Nakamichi turntable but manually adjusting to concentricity. Another way is to sand down the spindle to slightly smaller diameter at the bottom portion so you don't have to enlarge every record holes.
If you look closer, you can tell the hole has been slightly enlarged.
I have always wanted the turntable makers to make the spindle independent from the bearing shaft. At least the spindle should be a part of the platter instead of the bearing shaft or subplatter. Even better is to make the spindle detachable like a screw-on device to the PLATTER. Why allow bearing vibrations to be transmitted all the way up to the spindle that touches the actual record? My friend had a P-brand turntable with clamps and every time I clamp the record down to the platter, I could heard the noise from the motor. Unclamped it and the noise was gone. And the incident prompted me to dislike clamping to spindles that's machined to the subplatter and/or bearing.
Another accessory I can think of is to have two stiff platter mats to work with the detection device, one for playback on turntable and the other to get ready for the next disc. Obviously this dual mat system would require the turntable spindle to be smaller than usual if you were to do the centering away from the turntable, unless you want to enlarge every hole on your record collection.
Regardless of how one does the centering, making people and the industry to be aware of eccentricity is indeed a positive step forward. It might prompt them to come up with affordable accessories in the future. Heck, those expensive high end turntables should have an integrated system that does the centering for you!
Those detecting holes on the device.